


Pretty

by Hagen



Series: Cauliflower [4]
Category: Logan Lucky (2017)
Genre: F/M, Photographs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-12
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2019-04-22 03:28:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14299788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hagen/pseuds/Hagen
Summary: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.





	Pretty

             You have a windbreaker, a scarf and gloves and a hat with a bobble on the crown, but concern gnaws at Clyde. It is fall still and yet you curl up in thick woollen jumpers, swathed in blankets. Clyde voices his concern aloud. You are so terribly little, he insists – everyone is little to Clyde – and he is sure that you will freeze in the winter cold.

 

               He digs out a jacket that he says has not fitted him since he was sixteen. It is thick denim, warm sheepskin on its collar and within, and while it would not even begin to stretch across Clyde’s shoulders now, he is concerned that it will hang loose on you. Its denim is old but sturdy beneath his fingers, the sheepskin soft. Even the dark brassy buttons sit strong, not a loose thread to be seen. “

 

               You appropriate it gladly, proud to wear his clothes. After you had lain in bed and made love for the first time with rain lashing the skylight, you had snatched up one of his t-shirts to wear to the bathroom. It smelled of him, thick and spicy, and made you want to roll in the scent.

 

                You wonder, as you slip the jacket around yourself, what Clyde looked like at sixteen. He’s big and imposing _now,_ but even giants begin as babies. You ask him, and he digs in the closet, and shows you pictures. They come in an old shoebox, taped and stapled at the corners. You sit in his lap in the middle of the bedroom floor and together you go through them – there must be hundreds – one by one. The jacket is forgotten on the bed.

 

                There are so many pictures of Mellie. She reminds you of Curley’s wife, of sausage-curls and fluffy mules and red fingernails between the pages of musty Steinbecks read on hot summer schooldays. “She’s so pretty,” you say. He huffs in agreement.

 

                It becomes apparent that Jimmy played football in high school. In almost every picture he features in, his shoulders are red and exaggerated by the great jersey’s shoulder-pads. Clyde tells you that he almost went pro, but blew out his knee.

 

                “Bad luck,” he says, by way of explanation, and something darkens behind his eyes. You kiss his chin.

 

                You come across a picture of him, finally. He says that he was fifteen. You stare down at it.

 

               The picture is of Clyde and a black-and-white dog. They stand at the edge of a lake, by a dusty tire swing, and the sky is searing blue. He’s wearing only swimming trunks, and he is skinny and tall and pale. He is ever so _beautiful_ \- gawky and smiling from ear to exaggerated ear - nose too big for his long, smooth face. His hair was shorter then, wet and black, curling softly at the temple

 

             “Who took this?” you ask.

 

              “Mellie, I think. She was only little, that’s why the focus is off.”

 

              “You were so _pretty_ ,” you whisper.

 

             He goes pink. “You still are,” you insist, cupping his face in your hand.

 

             The pictures are quite forgotten then, fluttering to the ground, and you reassure Clyde that he is very, _very_ pretty indeed.


End file.
